Why hello there!

Much love to reviewers:

Deator11, Blazing Ocean, Watercolour dreams, thesomnambulist, Vinwin, GoldenAura, BooklvrAnnie, ClaireReno, Anna on the Horizon, sweet-tang-honney, MissImpossible, whiterose619, and Kako.

I send pastries flying towards you. Several replies at the bottom.

All my love,

Speechwriter.

Hermione woke up angry. Somehow, while she slept, the feeling of complete injustice had managed to creep back into her mind. She felt like calling Harry and Ron and telling them to come pick her up and take her back to her real school – a real school. As opposed to this resort-like castle out where there wouldn't even have been mobile reception if they didn't have their very own tower rising above the forest.

Her dorm, a single, overlooked the courtyard from three stories up. It was a calming view, and Hermione had been relieved to find that her neighbors were both very nice and that neither of them had an affinity for blasting EDM or anything similar. It was a boon, to be sure, especially since Zara had told Hermione at dinner about her own adjacent rooms. To Zara's left lived a pair of giggling girls who apparently loved the various works of Ke$ha, and to her right lived a mediocre electric guitarist who had seen fit to bring his amp to Hogwarts. So Hermione didn't feel mad about her room. Just mad in general.

It was a bit of a strange feeling, her mother finally leaving to finish law school, her father leaving to regain that job he'd always hated. Hermione felt a burn in her chest at the thought of her father. He was so deserving of his dream profession, of everything he had ever wanted – but he'd never really had the chance. Going to university had never even been an option for him, not with his three younger sisters, not with his single mother. Straight into the workforce it was, and he had never really been the most ambitious of types.

That lack of drive was the complete opposite of Hermione's mother, a fiery go-getter who dreamed of going skydiving in Australia someday, and that clash of personality had made them separate in the first place. It had thrown their family's financial situation into complete disarray, with double mortgages to deal with all while the housing market was being undercut by the rapidly deflating economy. When her mum sold her own flat and moved back in with Hermione's dad, she got practically no money, and it was only really then that she managed to find a stable job – at the factory, where Hermione's father was an assistant manager. It was strange for him, being her superior, and that had been the source of many a late-night fight as Hermione attempted to study.

And now? Now, the complete disbandment of everything Hermione had ever been accustomed to?

Well, it did nothing for her mood, that was for sure.

Hermione frustratedly yanked a brush through her hair. She'd considered just cutting it off so many times. It really wasn't worth the anguish.

She threw on a red shirt, a fraying brown hoodie, and dark jeans, pulling on her boots before leaving for breakfast. Schedules, apparently, arrived at the first breakfast, and Hermione was eager to see how it worked. The classes were the one thing about this school that she actually looked forward to; there were some brilliant minds teaching here that she couldn't wait to discover.

Four big tables sat in the Great Hall. All the different groups of people seemed to align themselves naturally around them – over at the table to the far right, the boys with the distressed jeans and the girls with the distressed makeup; to their left, the laughing, just-a-little-too-cheerful, red-eyed folk; to their left, the kids with pocket mirrors balanced on their advanced trigonometry textbooks; and on the far left, the rowdy, boisterous crowd which seemed to just be itching for a food fight to ensue.

Hermione was beckoned to the left by Zara, who sat opposite Mafalda. Hermione eyed Zara's attire with an almost dumbfounded eye; she looked as if she had stepped right off the pages of a magazine. She wore a light brown leather jacket over a wrinkled white button-up, with glimmering shoes that wrapped up her ankles. The fact that Hermione had noticed at all was sort of a feat in itself; she usually didn't dedicate her time to thinking about such things. Hermione wondered briefly if coordinating this sort of thing just came naturally to Zara, or if she spent ages planning everything.

As Hermione sat down, there was a tinkle of glass from the head table. The chattering died away as Armando Dippet rose.

"When the bell rings, you will receive your schedules from your chaperones," he said. "Have an excellent first day of class."

He sat back down, and Hermione frowned. "What does he mean, chaperones?"

"There are four teachers that are sort of like assistant Headmasters," Mafalda said through a mouthful of egg. "They each supervise one rooming block. Ours is Dumbledore – there, that one."

Hermione's head whipped around to stare at Dumbledore. He was world-renowned for his work on deciphering the evolution of the human genome using centuries-old DNA to assist him, as well as managing to beat out Gellert Grindelwald the same year for a Nobel Prize in medicine. He was supposedly highly eccentric, but he didn't look it as Hermione observed him. He had a vague smile, and his wrinkled face and kind blue eyes were almost reassuring to look at, as if he were an old friend waiting for rediscovery. "Wow," Hermione breathed. "So that's the famous Albus Dumbledore..."

Mafalda nodded. "He's a nutter," she said in a low voice. "Absolutely brilliant, of course, but he doesn't even seem like he's there half the time."

Well, Hermione thought, seeming like it didn't necessarily mean he wasn't all there. Perhaps he was just absorbed in his own thoughts. With a mind like his, it must have been difficult not to be.

A great, tolling bell rang, and a massive scraping and clattering ensued as students stood. Hermione, Zara and Mafalda forced to the front of the crowd and waited for Dumbledore to call their names.

Hermione broke the unnecessary wax seal on her schedule and unfolded it, scanning her classes. Four classes a day, five days a week – that made twenty periods, and Hermione was taking eleven classes. Each class only met twice a week, but that still meant that Hermione didn't have enough time. She discovered that she had an evening class on Thursdays and an early morning class on Mondays. That wasn't too bad, she mused.

Mafalda peered over at Hermione's schedule and her eyebrows soared so high they were in danger of seasonal migration. "What... what are you taking?" she said, her tone of voice deathbed.

Hermione read off the sheet. "French, Latin, European History, Advanced Economics, Linguistics, International Relations, Organic Chemistry, Biology, Evolution, Practical Application of Life Skills, whatever that is, and university-level Linear Algebra."

Her friends stared. Hermione had forgotten what it was like to be around people who had no idea of her intellectual level. She sighed and perused her schedule one more time. "Well, what are you two taking?"

"I'm only taking seven classes," Zara said. "Pre-Calculus, French, History, Economics, Chemistry, Evolution, and Practical Application."

Hermione frowned. "Wait, but wouldn't that mean you have a bunch of free periods?"

Zara nodded. "So I can do my homework, Hermione. Honestly, I don't know how you're going to manage that schedule."

"It'll work out," Hermione reassured, and the bell rang again. "Oh, wait – do either of you have Organic Chemistry?"

Both her friends shook their heads. "That class is impossible," Mafalda said. "The teacher's really... odd, too. It's down near the Den, I reckon you can find it pretty easily."

"Alright," Hermione said uneasily. She felt like once she stepped away from Mafalda and Zara, she would be drowned in the tumult of rich kids she didn't know. "I'll see you at lunch, then?"

"Yeah, course," said Zara.

Hermione hoisted her bag a little higher on her shoulder and headed toward the staircase, leaving Mafalda and Zara exchanging still-aghast looks behind her.

It wasn't hard to find the Chemistry classroom – it seemed to be the only classroom on this floor, buried amid a host of dorms. The room was mostly empty when Hermione walked in, and it remained that way, because apparently only nine students were taking the class that year. Hermione was immensely relieved that she already knew one them, Nick Abbott. She sat next to him and eyed the rest of the student population. Caroline Longbottom and Tom Riddle were both there, as was Abraxas Malfoy, Hermione noted with a twinge of dislike. There were a few other girls and boys, all of whom fell silent when the teacher walked in.

He looked jovial, with smile lines pressed around the corners of his eyes. His stomach drooped over his belt buckle, and his facial features were not unlike those of a walrus. He surveyed the room. "Oh, lovely! Big class this year."

Hermione whispered to Nick, "Is he being sarcastic?"

"Not at all."

"Welcome to Organic Chemistry," said the professor. "I'm Professor Slughorn, and I daresay we shall all get along swimmingly, despite the grades that some of you are bound to receive. After all, this class is famed as one of the hardest that is offered here at Hogwarts, and for good reason, too." He chuckled, like he had made a joke. Hermione didn't see what was funny. "In any case, take out your textbooks. Turn to page four. We'll be taking the quick diagnostic test on that page, just to see where you all are from previous classes, studying, all that."

Hermione nearly grinned. A diagnostic test? Lovely.

She barreled through it and was pleased to see that she finished before everyone except Tom Riddle, who seemed to lay down his pencil at the exact moment Hermione dropped her own. Slughorn picked up their papers.

She looked over at Tom Riddle and gave him a halfhearted smile. She hoped that their tying to finish this test wasn't some terrible metaphor for them tying for first in the class or something. No. She had to win.

He gave her a seemingly-appreciative nod, his lazy dark stare wandering up and down her body a bit disconcertingly. She wondered if he was judging her appearance, or if he was just being a regular teenage boy. But that was stupid – no one at Hogwarts was a regular teenager, and that went double for the first in the class.

Slughorn checked the papers lightning-fast and then looked back up at the class. "Well, these results are... most enlightening," he said, a crease in between his bushy eyebrows. "I do believe these two perfect scores are the first I've had in a few years. I know who you are, Mr. Riddle, of course, but who is Hermione Granger?"

Hermione raised her hand tentatively. Apparently, Slughorn didn't have any qualms about making public examples out of people.

"Yes, an excellent job, both of you," Slughorn said, and Hermione was a bit creeped out by the look he gave her. She wouldn't classify it under 'child-molester', per se; it was more like a cross between 'avid-comics-collector-finding-original-Superman-book' and 'wine-critic-sampling-a-delectable-Cabernet-Sauvignon'. In any case, it wasn't necessarily a bad look, just a bit strange, and Hermione was reminded of Mafalda's generous description of him as 'odd'. Slughorn continued, "With that... let's move into our first lesson, which is deceptively simple – classification of hydrocarbons."

The class culminated in the assignment of six short essay questions and forty pages of reading. Hermione wrote it in her oh-so-handy planner. She usually managed to cycle through three planners every year, which was an unfortunate expenditure, but she was opening and shutting the flimsy books so often that it was a miracle they held together for a few months at all.

She checked her schedule. Advanced Economics, next, on the fifth floor. As the bell rang, Hermione slung her bag over her shoulder, gritting her teeth with the weight, and walked out the door.

She didn't look forward to economics. VoldeMart inevitably came up in classes about economics, and that made Hermione itch to raise her hand and rant about the political and social evils of the commercial empire ... but she couldn't do that. She didn't want to make enemies out of too many students here, after all, and doubtless many Hogwarts families were at least shareholders in VoldeMart, even if they weren't actually on the corporate ladder.

Hermione was a bit curious, actually, about how the issue of VoldeMart would be handled. Surely Hogwarts didn't want to estrange any of its students, but it was pure fact that VoldeMart was taking its toll on the small-business world of Great Britain, subverting prices and overemploying at every opportunity. What would the teachers say? What did the teachers want to say? In Hermione's experience with teachers, they were, in large part, leftists, although that might not be the case at Hogwarts, the pretentious prep school to end all pretentious prep schools.

Hermione stopped at the corner. The halls were so winding down here near the Den – she couldn't remember where to go to get back to the stairs.

"Make a right," said a voice from behind her. Hermione glanced over her shoulder. Tom Riddle strolled towards her, a pencil stuck behind his ear and a suspiciously empty-looking leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

"Thanks," she said. "Good job on your diagnostic."

He smiled a bit. "Yeah, you too. Already taken Advanced Chemistry, then?"

"Year before last."

Riddle stuck his hands in the pockets of his overlarge green jacket, which was faintly military-reminiscent, boxy and frayed. "So, what class are you looking for?"

"Advanced Economics."

His eyebrows lifted slightly. "Hey, that's my next class, too. Advanced Economics and Organic Chemistry, same year? Someone's ambitious."

Hermione frowned a little at the word. "I've got it under control," she said, and smiled a little just at the very notion of Hermione Granger letting schoolwork get the better of her.

He smirked and glanced off to the side. Hermione couldn't keep her eyes off him. He looked such the stereotypical bad boy that it was ludicrous to imagine that he was first in the class and Head Boy. His hair, chaotic and soft-looking, rose above his forehead a little, casting a shadow over his brown eyes. Yet Hermione could have sworn that it had looked exactly the same yesterday, exactly the same disorder, like he carefully kept it that way. Hermione remembered Harry's hair and restrained a laugh – his had looked nearly the same, only he had never had to work to make it untidy.

"So, ah, if you don't mind me asking, what other classes have you 'got under control'?" asked Riddle, directing his smirk with full force at her. Hermione's heart skipped a beat. His eyes wandered over her face as if it belonged to him, and it disconcerted, unnerved, and exhilarated her. She hadn't felt this sort of embarrassing swoop in her stomach since Year 8, when famous author and ridiculously handsome person Gilderoy Lockhart had taught a year at her secondary school as an artist-in-residence. It disgusted her to remember all that now, of course. Was anything less attractive than serial plagiarism?

Hermione pressed a button next to one of the many lift cables, and one of the elevators sped towards them. "Lots," she said vaguely. It would be better if Riddle didn't know about his most dangerous competition. Maybe, since it was the last year of school, he would be prone to slacking, like most people.

"Yeah, seems that," wayhe chuckled. "That bag looks like it's about to pop. You sure you're not going to fall over?"

Hermione hoisted the bag higher, ignoring the way her shoulder seemed to be praying for relief. "I've had heavier," she said.

"Well, let me guess your classes," sighed Riddle, counting off on his long fingers. "Practical Applications, of course, since it's required. Advanced Economics and Organic, evidently. Probably... Latin, too?" He cast her a searching glance, as if 'Latin' were written on her forehead. "Linguistics... Evolution... European History... and I can't guess at your maths."

Hermione shot him a bit of a weird look. It was like he'd gotten hold of her schedule, although he'd left a couple off. "Well, yes, actually, all of those," she said slowly. "And my maths is linear algebra. A couple others, though. Honors Biology, French, and International Relations."

The glass lift whistled to a dangerously abrupt stop right next to Hermione. She cast it an alarmed glance, but looked back at Riddle as he chuckled softly. "Good Lord, that's a lot of classes," he said. "International Relations, though? Really?"

Her voice was curt. "Yes. I've always thought that being able to communicate was something that countries really ought to have a better hold on."

They stepped into the lift, and Hermione swallowed as it bobbed up and down slightly. This really didn't feel safe. Riddle tapped the '5' on the side of the elevator, and the doors hissed shut. He leaned against the glass, looking perfectly at ease, even as Hermione felt a very strong desire to curl into a ball as she looked down through the clear floor. "How did you guess all those classes?" she asked.

"Well, those were some of the classes I'm taking," he yawned, looking out at the Hogwarts interior as the lift sped upwards. Hermione grabbed onto the railing, and Riddle continued, "I figured you wouldn't be much interested in Engineering, or Marketing, though. Or Political Science. Most people just take Economics because it's required."

Hermione shrugged. "I did consider Political Science, but I thought French would be a bit more applicable." Her heart sank. He was also taking eleven classes. She had figured no one else would take so many.

"That's a lot to keep a grip on," said Riddle as the doors opened. "You sure you can handle it?"

"Are you?" Hermione said. Her gaze settled on the pencil behind his ear. Its presence was disarming. It was almost... cute, though she didn't think she could use that word to describe anything else about the boy.

He let out a derisive chuckle. "Oh, don't worry about me, sweetheart," he said. Hermione followed him through the crowded hallways on the fifth floor. "You think you'll have time to have a social life?"

Hermione shrugged, irritated by how he'd called her 'sweetheart'. Who did he think he was, the school nurse? "School comes first," she said. "I reckon I'll have at least a bit of extra time to myself, though."

Riddle stopped outside the Economics classroom. Hermione peered into the bustling interior.

"Well," he said, "if we have that many of the same classes, I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other this year."

Her mind did not interpret that correctly for a few seconds.

"Nice talking to you," he said.

She forced back her blush. "And you."

He turned, stretching out his arms as if he were just waking up, and walked over to sit near the middle of the classroom.

Hermione searched the class, and her eyes settled on Mafalda. She took a seat next to her curly-haired friend, casting one last glance at Tom Riddle. He sat at his desk as if it were a lounge chair, taking that weirdly endearing pencil from behind his ear and twirling it with two long fingers.

"Let me guess," said Mafalda, "you were just bonding with Tom Riddle over the fact that your schedules are both impossible?"

"Spot-on," Hermione said. "You know, he really doesn't seem that bad."

Mafalda shrugged, lowering her voice. "Yeah, whatever. I've heard he's just as biased as any of his buddies from the Den. I'd be careful – there are a lot of idiots at this place who will actually care that you're a scholarship student, even though there are lots who won't."

Well, that was what she had come in expecting. Actually, thus far, Hermione had been pleasantly surprised at nearly every turn. Despite the deal with students essentially rooming in glorified cliques, and the few glances her mismatched attire had gotten in the hallways, it wasn't bad at all, although that may just have been because no one actually knew she was on scholarship yet except Zara, Mafalda, Nick, and Trent.

Hogwarts, though... it just paled in comparison to her old school, where the teachers knew who she was, where everything was so familiar, where Ron was.

That was one of the main gripes her parents had had about her case for staying with the Weasleys – the fact that Hermione and Ron had just started dating. Hermione had a fit over that bit of reasoning, yelling at her parents about how little they trusted her and her judgment, that, what, did they think she was going to get pregnant or something? Not on her watch.

Ron hadn't been the most romantic boyfriend, but Hermione was such good friends with him in the first place that it didn't seem like much of a transition. And then the news. Her parents were laid off.

When Hermione first heard, she bought three cartons of eggs and smashed them on the back wall of a VoldeMart. Then, she called Ron and cried for three hours, before reluctantly starting to send out her application to boarding schools, feeling like she was writing her own death sentence. The worst part was writing the essays, writing about how much she needed help and how much she supposedly wanted to go to all these schools, because the second part was a lie, and the first was a personal insult. Hermione hated asking for help, hated needing help on anything. Being a scholarship student was a kick to the shins, the insult to an injury, the blow below the proverbial belt.

And then the break-up. Hermione was so frustrated with that entire situation – it had taken them, what, five years to realize their feelings for each other, and then after three weeks, oh, surprise, you're moving out to the countryside! Well, that had just been fantastic. She'd cried a bunch of fruitless tears and felt a bunch of fruitless misery, but her and Ron's friendship never suffered, and for that she was grateful. He was just a bit awkward about it. But then, that was the norm with Ron.

Hermione smiled a bit as she thought about Ron. What seemed to be a reel of his different facial expressions flashed through her mind – Ron indignant, Ron proud, Ron frustrated, Ron grinning, Ron bewildered, Ron appalled... so familiar, and so missed, already. Hermione swallowed a lump in her throat and looked up at the curve on the board, copying it precisely into her notebook. An economic trough, right after contraction, right before expansion. An emotional trough... all it could do was get better, right?

She heaved a sigh and raised her hand as the teacher, Professor Merrythought, asked a rather simple, rather asinine question.

oOo

Riddle put down his hand carefully. That girl was answering a question, and God, was she answering it. By the end of her response, which was like she had known about the question and had looked up an answer beforehand, most of the class stared shamelessly. She had the grace to look abashed, and Professor Merrythought sang her praises before continuing with the lesson.

Tom adjusted his hair, sighing. She'd just outlined, down to the last detail, the thing that every single person under his command apparently couldn't understand. Perhaps he should just recruit her, he mused, with a bit of rare humor in his thoughts. She was damn smart, even just going by that schedule and the Chemistry diagnostic. But she had already put herself in with those idiots over by the Door – not that she would have fit in too well at the Den, Riddle thought, as he eyed her clothes. There was a difference between looking stylishly drab and just looking like a VoldeMart mannequin.

Not that shopping at VoldeMart was a bad thing, of course.

Riddle turned back to the front of the classroom, half-wondering where the hell she'd found that brown hoodie. It looked like it couldn't have cost more than a few pounds, though going by the general student population, it was probably more like a few hundred... So many rich students spending money on clothes, money he himself could've put to so much better use.

Perhaps there was something to be said about her not-so-artfully-shabby appearance. After all, she hadn't taken to Malfoy's comment about her boots yesterday well. No, not a great sense of humor on that girl, even if Abraxas' jokes always did leave something to be desired. Riddle hadn't even heard of distressed boots. Perhaps they were some new fad among the London elite; that would explain her defensiveness.

Riddle sighed. This class was so boring. For God's sake, he was wasting his time thinking about the clothing of some new student – that was how unbelievably stimulating the class wasn't. Like he really needed to take an economics class. He was already his own economy.

The answers that his group had given him last night hadn't been entirely satisfactory, unfortunately for them. The stocks were sinking, which seemed counterintuitive, given the index's overall strength. Shouldn't people be more inclined to buy from a place that sold as cheap as VoldeMart? Riddle sighed. They'd go back up again – they always did. No quarterly losses on his watch.

The day went on, and Riddle wasn't particularly surprised by anything, except maybe by being a bit impressed with how much that girl knew. Every class was like a Hermione Granger lecture session. It was almost annoying, but not quite. Just turned out sort of amusing.

First day of term this year happened to be a Wednesday, so the party season started with fervor. They cranked up the music in the Den even louder than usual, had an open bar in the back room, and the lounge filled up with loudness and laughter like a hot bath.

Riddle had some homework, but he'd already done most of it in class, so he decided to drop by and check on things. The two idiots at the door, Angus Crabbe and Teddy Parkinson, recognized him from a mile away and stepped back.

He walked into the lounge, glancing around. It was loud that night, which he'd expected, given it was the first of the year. Riddle tugged a cigarette out of his pocket and stuck it between his lips, walking to the back for a light. He breathed in, and then exhaled slowly, sending a stream of smoke to hang around his head. Whoever was handling the drugs tonight was being extra-subtle, it seemed, in case a teacher happened to walk in for whatever reason. No one was doing lines off the side table, anyway, which was sort of a rarity.

Riddle turned, the cigarette between his fingers held loosely by his side. Health risks – whatever. He could quit whenever he wanted, easy. Everything was easy, after all.

He stripped off his green jacket and hung it on the doorknob to the back room, stretching out until his back cracked, his muscles flexing slightly. A hand landed on his bare arm. He turned.

"Iris Parkinson," he said slowly, savoring the words. How Teddy Parkinson had such a fine sister was a total mystery. She was in the year below him, blonde and attractive in a strange way, her close facial features as curved and voluptuous as the rest of her.

"Hey," she said with a smile.

"How was summer?" asked Riddle, like he genuinely cared. The best part about Iris was that she knew he didn't actually give two shits, and she didn't mind, because she cared exactly as little.

"Just waiting to get back, I guess," she replied, lifting one eyebrow like the words were suggestive. Riddle took another drag on his cigarette.

"Come on," he decided, and slung an arm around her shoulder, leading her into one of the rooms behind the black back room, amused by the misplaced look of victory on her face, like she ever could have influenced his choice of what, or whom, to do with his time.

oOo

Dinner was perhaps the best of Hermione's life. She couldn't believe how much Hogwarts provided, laid on the giant tables in these magnificent dishes, a royal feast. She suddenly regretted having skipped dinner yesterday to sleep; if dinner was like this all the time, then she might never skip another meal in her life.

She sped through her homework, spending more time than was necessary on the economics paper. It was about 8:30 when Mafalda knocked on the door and peeked around it to see what she was working on.

"Jesus, Hermione, Merrythought didn't assign us a novel," Mafalda yelped, eyeing Hermione's essay with alarm.

"I'm passionate about the subject." The subject? VoldeMart.

Hermione hoped Merrythought didn't really care one way or the other about VoldeMart, so that he wouldn't mind – or wouldn't pick up – the vehemence with which she wrote. She was really letting the paper have it, though. Three pages handwritten quickly turned into six, her handwriting frantic and squished between the lines like it was trying to force its way out.

"You're, like, the only person I know who cares this much about economics," sighed Mafalda, sitting down on Hermione's bed.

"Well, in my opinion, more people should care," Hermione said, stapling her essay together. "Then maybe things like this –" she brandished the sheaf of paper – "wouldn't happen."

"Things like … you writing a far-too-long essay?" asked Mafalda, looking a bit puzzled.

"No," Hermione laughed, her righteous anger deflating. "No way to prevent that. I meant things like VoldeMart. It's doing terrible things to our country, but no one will take a step back and look at the social and moral injustices it's created." She let out a tired sigh. "Never mind. It's not as if I'll find many sympathizers here at Hogwarts Academy for High Society Teenagers. No offense."

Mafalda shrugged. "None taken. You're right, really. Most everyone here's at least got one stinking rich parent, or if not that, a grandparent or two. I'd apologize if it'd do any good." Hermione snorted and picked up her linguistics textbook. Just this, and then she was done for the night, and it wasn't even nine o'clock yet. Then, there were only two days left in the week. Good way to ease into the term, that was for sure.

"Hey, Hermione," said Mafalda, "do you want to go and check out the pool?"

"What?"

Mafalda said, "It's where the people from Griffin's Door usually meet up. I mean, it's a Wednesday night, so I was thinking that we could go and see if there was something going on, if you'd like."

Hermione smiled. "Sure, but I have to answer some passage-based questions for Linguistics. Do you want to go get Zara, or someone, and we can go together? I should be done by nine fifteen or so."

"Yeah, I'll go ask her. We'll come pick you up then, yeah?"

"Great," Hermione said with a smile. Mafalda left, and Hermione wondered what Harry and Ron would say if they knew she was going to go and associate around a private pool with people who spent more on their left shoes than she spent all year. Ron would probably let out a breath and say, "Blimey, Hermione, good luck," and Harry would probably mutter something to the effect of "Pretentious..."

The linguistics took less time than anticipated, so Hermione checked herself in the mirror and added a scarf to her outfit in a bleak attempt to liven up her appearance, which she had always sort of considered to be a hopeless case. She sighed, sat on her bed, and flipped open a textbook for a bit of light reading.

oOo

"Shit, man, there you are," gasped Jonathan Avery, his light brown hair looking even more disheveled than usual.

"Can't you see I'm busy?" growled Riddle, as Iris attempted to cover her naked chest.

"I, uh, I gotta talk to you, man," Avery said, gesturing with a hand, his eyes straying back to Iris.

Riddle sighed. "All right. Fine." He slipped his shirt back on, stood, and then turned back to Iris. To say she looked annoyed would have been a drastic understatement. "I'll be back in a moment," he said.

Riddle steered Avery back into the black room. The American boy was really pissing him off, always panicked, always worrying, always having a fit over something or other. Avery fidgeted, glancing from one side to the other, shifting from one foot to the other. "First: Jesus, Mary and Joseph, calm down," Riddle said. "Second of all, what so desperately requires you interrupting me?"

Avery's face struggled to calm itself in the flashing, multicolored lights. "Okay," he said, and pulled out his iPhone. "So I heard there's a new lawsuit against us."

Tom rolled his eyes. "And?"

"Well, it's not just the usual bullshit about some douche falling down in an aisle or something. It's this journalist lady who claimed that our PR gave her inaccurate information to run about some sales number. They're asking for a statement. Well, your statement."

Riddle sighed. "Look, Avery," he said, with as much forced patience as possible, "it's not like it's going to be run under my name anyway. Why would you think it appropriate to ask me?"

"Because Abraxas' dad is fucking freaking out, and he doesn't know what to say," Avery said.

"Good God," muttered Riddle, "the man is forty-six and he wants an eighteen-year-old to spoon-feed him a statement?" Avery opened his mouth to reply, but Riddle interrupted, "Rhetorical question. You tell him to tell whoever's asking that the number was a simple mistake. Whatever form of communication that journalist lady used, it was a communication error. Didn't hear her correctly over the phone, misread an email, whatever the hell it has to be – and then add on some apology about the seeming lack of transparency of the situation." He considered for a second. "Why is Abraxas' father so worried, anyway?"

Avery swallowed. "He sort of... fucked the journalist lady."

Riddle closed his eyes and counted very slowly to ten. Eloquent words for an eloquent situation. "Wonderful. Tell him to please attempt to restrain his libido in the future. Is that all, Avery?"

"Yes, sir," said Avery.

"So I can go back in there and you won't come in?"

"Sure thing. Sir."

"Next time, just come up with something yourself. It's really not that damn hard. Goodnight."

The American boy swallowed as Riddle shut the door. Except it was that damn hard, because if he did one thing wrong, there would be hell to pay. Avery looked down at the palm of his hand, at its ugly round cigarette burn, and then clenched his fist, trying to ignore the discomfort of the healing skin. He was paying the price now for what would be success later, he reassured himself. That was how they all reassured themselves.

Riddle got back to what he was doing, but, as usual, his mind was elsewhere. Rarely did a lawsuit manage to trickle through the bureaucracy and reach him, or the Malfoys, or the Blacks – anyone who mattered. He was mildly surprised that this journalist lady had been so persistent – usually, the settlements more than sated those who sued. Of course, the fact that this lady had had sex with Malfoy added to the indignance factor. Since the death of Malfoy's wife, he'd gone a bit crazy, so it was probably good that Riddle was heading things up now.

Riddle never trusted anyone but himself to do things right, and for good reason, apparently, after these last couple of weeks. The layoffs had stopped. He had demanded to know why. Employment costs had risen. He had demanded to know why. Hell, even purchasing costs had risen. What were they doing, suddenly starting to buy from domestic factories again? So that those people could keep their shitty low-class jobs? They'd find other employment. Come on; they were the teeming masses. They were hardly people at all; they were spoken of in bulk, as in, several thousand workers were laid off today. And those several thousand would find work elsewhere. Probably, some of them, at VoldeMart itself. They didn't matter. They'd survive.

He had nearly laughed when Professor Merrythought had assigned them a three-page essay – describe the benefits or disadvantages of one major multinational corporation. A fairly standard assignment for day one economics. Of course he'd chosen VoldeMart. What easier avenue was there? He hadn't been able to stop talking about the company, so the essay had turned out sort of longer than expected, but that was fine. It wasn't like he'd had to spend any significant amount of time on it.

Riddle slowly attempted to turn his attention back to the girl beneath him, but that was too much effort, so he just relaxed and let his mind wander where it would.

YUP SO THERE'S CHAPTER TWO

Review Replies:

Kako:

Haha, YES there is going to be romance. I hate specifying genres... I feel under pressure... GAH But yeah, on the humor. I'm hoping if I were to come back and read it, I'd find it amusing too.

Anna on the Horizon:

God I couldn't resist the 1940's jibe in chapter one... I thought about cutting it but I just couldn't.

Deator11:

Actually, I don't know from personal experience. I have a vague idea – there are some rich-ass people at my school, and I just went on that uncomfortable feeling and magnified it somewhat. I'm glad I managed to keep it sort of realistic.